by Carol Weston
Probably pretzels and mangoes.
EY•VUH
11/2
A LITTLE LATER
DEAR DIARY,
The phone rang, and instead of checking caller ID, I picked up like an idiot. I thought it would be Dad, and I was going to ask him to buy some grapes.
“Hello,” I said.
“Is this Ava?”
“Yes…” My heart started doing flip-flops because I thought I recognized the voice.
“It’s Bea. Bea Bates.”
I didn’t know whether to hang up, apologize, defend myself, or say, “Wrong number.”
“Hi,” I mumbled.
“Hi,” she repeated. Why had I picked up? Pip never picks up! She lets the machine take messages unless it’s Dad or Mom or me.
“First of all,” Bea began, “I don’t have a big nose.”
I was torn between saying, “I don’t know what you’re talking about” and “Poetic license.” Dad says writers get a “poetic license” when they exaggerate to make a point.
“Second, I don’t have a pool or a lifetime supply of Popsicles.”
I kept quiet.
“And third, I am not rude, but your story was.”
“Rude?” I repeated, which meant that so far, all I’d said was: “Yes,” “Hi,” and “Rude?” I’d heard of one-liners, but never one-worders. Bea was making me as tongue-tied as Pip!
“Why did you write about me like that?” she asked.
“My story isn’t about you! It’s about a girl with a big nose and a big pool…” Suddenly I was glad no one was home, because I didn’t want Dad or Mom or Pip to hear me trying to defend my story.
“Named Bea? Who’s new? Ava, don’t insult my intelligence.”
I went quiet again. I didn’t want to insult her intelligence, but I didn’t want her to insult me either.
“You know what? Maybe you’re right,” Bea continued. “Your story is not about me. But you should think twice before you set out to ruin someone’s reputation.”
“Well, you should think twice before you set out to ruin someone’s birthday!” I blurted, surprising myself. “My sister still hasn’t gotten over it!”
“Excuse me? How was I supposed to know your sister was having a party that day?” Bea asked. “I barely knew she existed! If she or her friends had said something, I could’ve invited her. No big deal. So blame Pip, not me.”
“Wait. You’re saying it’s Pip’s fault you stole her friends?!”
“Stole her friends?! Ava, you’re in fifth grade, right? When you’re my age, you’ll realize that friends aren’t objects you can steal. I’m friendly, so I have lots of friends. Your sister is unfriendly, so she doesn’t. To be honest, when I first met Pip, I thought she was a snob because she keeps to herself so much.”
What?! Did Pip really come off as a snob? Do some people think she doesn’t talk because she thinks she’s too good for them? “You shouldn’t say mean things about someone you don’t know!” I said and started pacing around our living room with the phone at my ear.
“You shouldn’t write mean things about someone you don’t know!” she shot back. “And I’m not a queen bee. You are a drama queen!”
“Me?”
“You! What was my big crime anyway? Throwing a party? Because yours was jumping to conclusions and writing a malicious story.”
I stopped pacing and quickly looked up “malicious” on Dad’s computer.
The dictionary said “intending to do harm.”
Whoa. Had I intended to do harm? I felt dizzy. My Queen Bee story was supposed to be about kindness, but was the story itself unkind? Was I? I was starting to feel like a rotten potato.
“Ava? Are you still there?”
“Yes,” I said, and mumbled “I’m sorry” into the phone.
“Sorry you wrote what you wrote, or sorry I found out?”
“Both,” I replied before realizing that was not the best answer.
“Well, you should be! How would you feel if I wrote a story about a mean fifth-grader named Ava?”
“Bad.”
“Exactly. And for your information, when you write something down, it doesn’t go away. It’s not like talking on the phone.”
I nodded, but since we were talking on the phone, I forced myself to say, “Okay.”
“But don’t you see? That’s my point: it’s not okay. From now on, whoever reads your story at school will think less of me or less of you.” I hadn’t thought of it that way and slumped into Dad’s chair. “For the record,” she continued, “I had to read your story three times just to be sure I wasn’t being paranoid.”
I pictured Bea reading 400 x 3 = 1,200 of my words. If it had been a regular story, I would have felt incredibly proud. Instead I felt like a potato with mold all over it.
How many other copies of Winning Words were out there for me to worry about. Forty? Fifty?
I went upstairs and into Pip’s messy room, holding the phone to my ear. The sky-blue booklet was on her desk, and I picked it up.
“I finally asked Isabel about it,” Bea was saying, “and she explained everything. I just wish she’d said something then! Or that your sister had! I gave that party to make friends, not enemies.”
I carried Winning Words into my room and stuck it in my dead diary graveyard where it could keep my underwear and my Loser Words company.
“Ava, are you even there?”
I said, “Yes,” but didn’t know what else to say because I was starting to see things from Bea’s side. I was about to mumble “Sorry” again when she said, “My aunt said I should call you, so I did. But that’s it. We’re done. I just wanted to give you a piece of my mind.”
I pictured myself holding a piece of Bea’s mind, which was a pretty disgusting image, to tell you the truth.
Bea hung up and I did too. But I wished I’d apologized better.
I also wish I weren’t alone in the house anymore, because right now I’m feeling alone in the world.
AVA, ALONE AND APOLOGETIC
11/2
BEDTIME
DEAR DIARY,
Dad and I were sitting on the sofa. He picked up his big fat thousand-page book. “What if James Joyce had written about two days instead of one day?” I asked. “Would Ulysses have been two thousand pages long?”
He laughed and said he wanted to read my story. I said I misplaced it. He said, “Really?” like he didn’t quite believe me. I said, “Really” because it was sort of true: I’d placed it where it would be missing!
To be honest, I don’t like being less than honest with Dad. I mean, I wish I could just tell him everything and have him hug me and tell me it’s all going to be okay.
But what if he got disappointed in me instead? Or thought everything was not going to be okay? I don’t think I could take it.
Anyway, Dad went back to reading, and I wrote Bea an apology note in my very best handwriting.
I’m going to deliver it tomorrow before homeroom.
Here’s what it says:
DEAR BEA,
I REALLY AM SORRY. I WAS JUST TRYING TO HELP MY SISTER.
AVA
It’s late, and I hope I can fall asleep.
ASININE AVA
P.S. I swear “asinine” is not a swear word. It means really foolish and idiotic.
11/3
BEFORE SCHOOL
DEAR DIARY,
I slept terribly. I dreamed a vicious bee with a tiny tiara was buzzing around my head and would not buzz off.
At breakfast, I was exhausted. Dad opened the fridge and said, “No melon, no lemon” (N-O-M-E-L-O-N, N-O-L-E-M-O-N). Then he said, “Aha!” (A-H-A) and picked up a shriveled olive. “An evil olive!” (E-V-I-L-O-L-I-V-E). Then he bit into a banana.
Mom said, “Yo, Banana Boy!” (
Y-O-B-A-N-A-N-A-B-O-Y). “It’s too early. Besides, I have a headache. And I already took one lonely Tylenol” (L-O-N-E-L-Y-T-Y-L-E-N-O-L).
Pip and I looked at each other, and I thought: no wonder Pip doesn’t talk much in public. When it comes to conversation, our parents are very peculiar role models.
I told my family I had a nightmare, but didn’t say it was a nightbee.
“I’m sorry,” Dad said, then added, “I guess I’d better not tell you girls about what I’m working on.”
“Why not?” Pip asked.
“Because it would give you both bad dreams!”
“Tell us!” Pip and I said, right on cue. Then we both said, “Jinx!”
Dad smiled and said, “You know how there are lots of books about vampires?”
“Yes,” Pip said.
“Well, the first good one was Dracula, and I’m trying to turn it into a play for kids. It was by an Irish writer.”
Mom leaned her head on her hand in a tired way, while Dad explained that the author, Bram Stoker, got the idea from a church in Dublin. The church was so dry and cool inside that the bodies in its crypt barely decomposed. They looked alive even though they were dead!
For a second, I pictured Little Bram Stoker as a ten-year-old in a navy jacket and maroon tie telling a contest audience how inspiring it was to observe a bunch of non-rotting corpses.
Mom looked up. “Really, Bob? You’re telling our daughters about corpses first thing in the morning?”
Dad shrugged, but the funny thing is, I didn’t mind hearing about the creepy, well-preserved corpses because it gave me “perspective.” I mean, at least I’m—
AVA, AWAKE AND ALIVE
11/3
AFTER SCHOOL, IN THE LIBRARY
DEAR DIARY,
Before homeroom, I walked down the school hall and up to Bea’s locker, which I’d noticed was close to Pip’s. I looked both ways, slipped my note in, and ran. Instead of my phone number, which she obviously had, I wrote my locker number next to my name.
An hour later, I noticed a corner of a yellow piece of paper sticking out of my locker. I could feel every one of my nerves jingling, but I reached for the note and opened it up. The handwriting was bad, but I deciphered it and here it is:
Ava,
Meet me at my locker after seventh period.
Bea
I was tempted to write her a note back saying I had a dentist appointment, and I thought: How am I going to survive until seventh period?
Well, you know how time can go fast or slow? Today time took its time! All the minute hands on the wall clocks seemed stuck, and I kept trying to figure out what I should say to Bea.
When the bell finally rang after seventh period, I went to her locker. I stood there like an idiot and watched the entire school rush by, nice kids and mean kids, nice teachers and scary teachers, and even Principal Gupta, who is strict, and Nurse Abrahams, who is sweet. (I wanted to call out, “Nurse Abrahams! Help! Help! S-O-S! S-O-S!”)
It was almost time for math when Bea showed up. “Have you thought about what you did?” she asked.
“Yes.” She looked at me, waiting for more. “I was trying to help my sister, but what I wrote wasn’t fair, and I’m sorry. I apologize again.”
She stared at me for a while then said, “You should have left me out of it. And there are better ways to help your sister. Tell you what, Ava, why don’t you meet me after school in the library?”
Another meeting? I didn’t want another meeting!
The bell rang, and I mumbled, “Okay,” and ran to math. I didn’t want to be late because Mrs. Hamshire gets mad when kids are late. And she’s scary even when she’s not mad.
After math, I called Dad and said I was going to the library after school and would get home a little late.
Dad loves libraries, probably even more than Mrs. (Bright) White + Jerry Valentino + Mr. Ramirez combined. So he didn’t say, “The library? I forbid it!” He said, “Okay.”
So I didn’t say, “Dad, if I never make it home, I love you, and blame Bea Bates!” I just said “Okay” back.
Well, it’s now 3:05, and I’m in the school library, and Bea is nowhere in sight, and I feel like an inchworm. (That’s a sad simile.)
Outside, the branches are blowing every which way. Inside, it feels hot and stuffy.
I’m waiting and waiting and trying to stay calm. The custodian is emptying the waste paper baskets and scraping gum off from under the desks.
Did Bea tell me to stick around just to torture me? Did she mean today?
I got out my pleasure-reading book but kept rereading and rerereading the same page, and it was not a pleasure. I took out my spelling notebook and tried to study bonus words, but I couldn’t keep my mind on them.
One was “libel,” which means writing something “unfavorable” about a person. Well, I now realize that if you LIBEL someone, you’re LIABLE to get into big trouble.
Questions:
1.Are my days numbered? My hours? My minutes?
2.Where is Bea??
3.What does she want with me anyway???
AVA IN ANGUISH
11/3
BEDTIME
DEAR DIARY,
At 3:10, Bea came racing in. Mr. Ramirez looked surprised to see Bea (a seventh-grader) heading straight toward me (a fifth-grader).
Suddenly Bea was looming over me all out of breath with a yellow pad and pointy pencil.
“Are you going to write a mean story about me?” I asked. The words came tumbling out.
“What are you talking about?” Bea sat down. “I’m not here for revenge. I’m here to help you help your sister.”
“I don’t get it,” I said. If I were Bea, I’d hold a grudge for a year. Or for life.
“Ava, I’ve been thinking. You did a bad thing for a good reason. And it does stink about Pip’s party. But it’s not too late to make things better for her.” She pulled a scrunchie off her wrist and put her blond hair into a ponytail. “She can’t go through middle school not talking, right? Being painfully shy must be painful.”
I was about to defend Pip, but I realized that Bea wasn’t attacking her. So I sat there speechless, which is way more Pip-y than Ava-y. Finally I said, “I still don’t get it.”
“This may sound weird,” Bea began, “but when I grow up, I want to be an advice columnist.”
“For real?”
“For real. Whenever I pick up a magazine, I turn to the advice column first.”
I wasn’t sure what to say. I’m not used to seventh-graders confiding in me about their life goals. And not one kid in homeroom had said, “Advice columnist.”
“My aunt says I have a lot of common sense, and that that’s very uncommon,” Bea continued. “So look, you want to help Pip, and I want to help people, so maybe we can figure something out.”
“Maybe…” I said.
“My big brother used to be really shy, and I helped him. I mean, he’s still a little shy, but not as shy as he used to be.”
“Huh,” I said, remembering the sandy-haired freckled boy at Misty Oaks Library.
“Last summer at camp,” she said, “I made a lot of friends on the first day, but it took him weeks to get to know people. He said I was ‘the opposite of shy’ and asked how I did it. Well, that got me thinking.”
“Oh,” I said. Bea had turned me back into a one-word wonder.
She met my eyes and said, “Tell me about Pip.” I didn’t know if I should or not, but Bea had just told me about her brother, so next thing you know, I heard myself telling her that Pip likes big books and small animals and that she’s artistic and smart and pretty, but “too quiet for her own good.”
Bea said, “Let me sleep on this and let’s meet tomorrow. Same table, fifteen minutes before school starts.”
I couldn’t
believe we were scheduling another meeting. It was like we were grown-ups or something.
Now I’m in bed. I told Mom and Dad to wake me early because I had to work on a language arts project. They didn’t question that, and it wasn’t a total lie anyway because Bea and I want to try to help Pip use the English language.
Funny how some parents ask about every detail of their kids’ lives, and some don’t.
Question: Mom and Dad overprotect Pip, but do they underprotect me?
AVA ALL ANTSY
11/4
IN STUDY HALL
DEAR DIARY,
I got to the library on time, and Bea got there a few minutes late. “You have really good handwriting, right?”
“Right.” I almost told her that my favorite letter in cursive is a capital Q because of how it looks a little like a fancy 2: Q. I did not almost tell her that when I was little and my family needed me to be quiet, they’d sometimes give me a page of Os that I would turn into Qs (regular Qs, not cursive Qs), and that this was my idea of a good time.
“My handwriting’s terrible,” Bea said, and luckily I did not blurt, “I know” or “I noticed” or “You can say that again.” “Tell you what,” she continued. “I’ll talk, and you write.”
“Okay.” I dug out my turquoise pen, and Bea handed me a piece of yellow lined paper. She also got out a small spiral notebook that looked pretty worn, and then she started dictating. Well, I was concentrating so hard on spelling and neatness that I hardly even noticed what I was writing. I wanted all the dots on my i’s to match, and I didn’t want them to be bubbles, hearts, or daisies because I wanted Bea to think I was mature. When I got to the last word of her “four pointers,” she took the paper back.
“Perfect!” she said. She borrowed Mr. Ramirez’s scissors and cut the paper into four strips. It felt like we were doing an arts and crafts project.
“Here’s the first assignment,” Bea said as she handed me a yellow strip. The handwriting was mine, but the words surprised me:
Week One:
Smile at one new person every day.